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Microgravity Science - Aerogel in
your House
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The House of the Future?
Glossary: Aerogel,
Super Materials
Aerogel Update 6/12/97: Will
Aerogel Let You Put a 24 GigaHertz Computer on Your Desktop by
2006?
June 27, 1997: Hear
what scientists are saying about Aerogel! (link to Japan's
only 24 hour science and technology news channel - on the web!
This link uses RealAudio, text is also printed.)
A remarkable, nearly transparent material
called aerogel is a dry gel principally made from silica. In the
"Technology to Watch" section of Fortune Magazine,
the use of aerogels was cited for more than 800 different product
applications ranging from satellites to surfboards. As the world's
lightest solid, aerogel can save significant weight on future
space vehicles. One proposal places solid aerogel tires on the
Mars rover - adding weight nearly equivalent to the weight of
air in the same space. The photograph at left shows a sample of
this twenty-first century material. (see
more samples)
The
most exciting and near term ground application, however, is the
contribution of aerogel on a per weight basis as the strongest,
lightest and only transparent building material. The material's
specifications are the stuff of science fiction. Weighing as little
as 3 times that of air, a single inch thickness of this silica-based
material has the internal surface area of a basketball court and
can protect a human hand from the heat of a blowtorch. The picture
at right shows both how strong and how transparent aerogel is.
What appears to be a penny is a penny - behind the nearly-transparent
aerogel sample.
For
windows and skylights, the "holy grail" - according
to Chemical and Engineering News - is a transparent aerogel. Current
aerogels, as produced on the ground, however, are not completely
transparent, but instead have a slight blue haze to them. This
blue color arises from the presence of large pores formed during
the gellation and the hypothesis currently being tested by the
most recent NASA experiments centers on whether a more uniform
and therefore transparent gel can be made in space. Since aerogel
has the equivalent thermal insulating quality equal to 10-20 glass
window panes, the energy conserving effects of an aerogel window
replacement would significantly lower heating bills, particularly
in Northern climates.
The
picture at right demonstrates aerogel's insulating properties:
A fresh flower was placed atop a thin sample of aerogel, and placed
over a gas flame. The flower was not harmed.
On April 3, 1996, an experimental rocket - a two-stage, solid-fuel
Starfire - launched the payload and returned safely to earth with
the first piece of extraterrestrially
produced aerogel. The confirmed height to low-earth orbit
was 200 miles or about 13 miles higher than the Space Shuttle
orbits. The results of these experiments, conducted in alliance
with Aerojet Corporation and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs,
will provide valuable data on the lowest density solid material
ever produced, the first space chunk of aerogel, otherwise called
"frozen smoke".
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Dr. David Noever, a NASA researcher on the project, adds: "The
strictly unscientific term for aerogel is "pet cloud."
In the house of the future, aerogel will not replace other pets,
but will find a host of places for making life more comfortable.
Insulating, clear windows. Large, energy-stingy skylights. Oven
door panels. Space-saving refrigerators. Lightweight picnic coolers.
Even an aerogel surfboard in the closet. These are just a few
of the more imaginative ways that aerogel will place a pet cloud
in every House of the Future. |
Curator: Bryan Walls
NASA Official: John M. Horack
last update: July, 1998
Science@NASA
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